A Promise of Tomorrow
by thundersenshi
Summary: Because people from the other side of the battlefield have good reasons of their own. A brief look into their lives on the night before their wars ended. Shorts & drabbles collection. Will attempt to make it SI to IV.
1. Freedom

**Freedom **

* * *

It is often late at night when he comes home to retire. Then he rises with the dawn. But the wee hours in between is shared _with _ me--in one room, one bed. One dream. It is in his presence at night that I find my only sanctuary...when I hear the door creaking softly to let him in, his footsteps weighed with exhaustion even as he tries to slip quietly into bed, and sometimes, the barest brush of his fingers upon my hair or my cheek, as he thinks me asleep. But it is only in that moment do I let my self slip into slumber. Only after knowing that we share this silent intimacy and I am not alone.

So I feel it if he is gone before he should be, before dawn comes to claim him. Tonight. My hand instinctively slide to feel the space beside me, and its warmth tells me that he hasn't been gone long. My eyes search the room and they immediately descend upon his form, standing by the balcony doors, clothed in moonlight. He is looking pensively outside the glass windows, and I know from the look on his face that tonight is different from the others. In my seclusion within the castle, I am hardly abreast with the concerns of war. But tonight he is gone from my side earlier that what I have been accustomed to, and it isn't difficult to hazard a guess where his thoughts now lay.

Even as I cross the room to close the distance between us, he does not look at me. Then, for certain, I know that something is wrong.

"You..." I try to speak, but I falter at first. "You are worried about something?"

He looks away from the window and turns to me with downcast eyes. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"I-I hadn't meant to wake up, but..."

"I'm sorry."

I shake my head. "It's nothing."

"No," he says emphatically, surprising me as his eyes finally meets mine. "It's not that." Then, in a softer voice, he repeats, " _I'm __sorry _."

The tone is something I recognize, and now it is my turn to fight the urge to tear my eyes away. "I told you before you don't need to apologize for anything ever again. Not to me."

"You know I do."

"But you can't have regrets."

"I don't." He sighs tiredly and his gaze softens. "I don't have regrets for my sake. Yours is a different matter." His voice grows stronger with conviction. "I throw the final gamble tomorrow."

My heart beats wildly and painfully in my chest as I hear him say those words, knowing exactly what he means by them. I have felt this moment come with every fiber of my being, and yet I find myself vulnerable and unprepared for such an announcement. I close my eyes to draw strength from deep within. But his next words, whispered as they were, were just as staggering as the last.

"I want you to be free."

My eyes open of their own volition upon hearing that strange quality of his voice. _"Free?" _

"I have taken everything from you. Your father, your brother...your kingdom." He senses the protest in my eyes, and he attempts to strengthen his resolve once again. "I want you to be free."

"But not from you..."

_Never from you. _

Gods. I have never asked so much for myself. I have given what I can for people to be spared. I would have given all of my lives for Highland. But all I ask now...

He shakes his head, the pain in his eyes no doubt reflecting my own. "It's not right."

"Let me be the judge of that."

I reach for his hand, and I see that I startled him with my touch. He smiles sadly in return, his eyes wistful with unspoken promises.

"Somehow, I knew you'd say that."


	2. Saving Grace

**Saving Grace **

* * *

With the only chance she had, she told me that to follow you would be _insanity_. She, the seer of balance and a keeper of her own True Rune...I had expected foresight deeper than that.

I suppose it is her sense of justice that spoke to me that night so long ago, but to appeal to me in such a way would not have amounted to anything. If it didn't stop you, then it would not have stopped me. She is more blind than I thought if she thinks I did this out of anything other than what is true to me. If she could open her eyes and look into mine, I doubt they would have spoken any differently from her words. Of course, I can never know for certain, but with that single plea, she had lost any chance to sway me from your path. I knew then, that if _she _ didn't understand my reasons, then neither would _anyone else_.

Not that crimson-eyed devil who fights by our side, lured by the scent of blood. He looks at me, mocking and condescending and taking delight in what he perceives to be my weakness--following you without question. Though we tread the same path, we do so for different reasons.

Not that cool-eyed, ambitious strategist who regards me with a mixture of pity and disgust for my seemingly waste of existence. For walking in your shadow.

It is not their consolation I seek. It is not for them that I stand here tonight and guard this rune with my strength.

Tonight I pray that the souls sacrificed in this war find their way to heaven. I am not heartless. Nor am I blind. I know full well the consequences of following you and I do not ask to be forgiven because I cannot. Win or lose, my fate is sealed. Contrary to what they think, I decided it for myself when I followed you.

Because being with you has finally given me more purpose and direction in a life I had lost hold of since childhood. And so I will follow you even to the hands of death.

_Madness_, they call it. And I do not seek to protest nor to justify my actions.

For how can I make anyone understand that amidst all this chaos surrounding me, it is _you, _above all else, that keeps me sane?


End file.
